Viola canina
by Parizaad
Summary: violets crumble in the light of them. ( retelling of a sort of Ovid's poem. Ianthe/Iphis. One-shot.)


_**Viola Canina**_

 _by Parizaad_

.

 **A/N:** I happened to stumble upon their story and was extremely sad at how underappreciated it went. Here's a retelling, I hope I do them justice. It's short and bitter, be warned. ( Mirror posted on AO3)

.

Iphis is many things.

The lyre strings fall seamlessly beneath fingertips like Apollo himself hewed the lyre, so Iphis is of hailed nimbleness. The wooden sword raises high and does not fall until it presses the jugular of the foe, so Iphis is precocious. Words are honeyed and silken, they flow and bewitch and charm, so Iphis is a winsome child.

Father's customers buy extra oat when Iphis is at the shop, so luck comes to them with just the sweep of hand. Wide gray eyes and tawny skin with rosebud lips, nose as strong as oars and eyelashes as thick as pine furrow and deep constellation onyx hair, a handsome child.

But when the sails hang low, and the curtains are drawn and Iphis shrugs off the dress, and touches, palms gliding across Iphis' body. How all of that changes then. Slow, and sure, breathing and glancing at the little mirror slanting against a wall, of how Iphis' body curves and tides and falls lower into flat, folds of gentle lapping. Blowing the candles off, Iphis guards this.

Iphis is a secret beneath secret, and mother trembles fortnight by fortnight. For reasons known to the divine and the candles that go out at night, to Iphis' eyes and to mother's.

Iphis is a girl.

.

She has long, black waves and darker eyes, still. A bobby, gold pin falls a little limp to all the others otherwise secure. Her long dress brushes the tarmac and she asks a question, eyes averted, her voice, sweet and female and high. A rosy blush on her brown skin as she reaches for Iphis.

But their faces meet and lips fall open, teeth click, and bodies become naked and vulnerable. Iphis leaves love down Ianthe's neck and down her breast and down still. So when Ianthe presses her palm on the base of her stomach and leans forward to ask,

 _"_ _What do you hide then?"_

She screams.

Iphis wakes up, gasping. Sweat and kerosene on her skin, tangled sleepy limbs. Eyes face the ceiling and asks sweet nothings. The room is dark and her skin is naked under blanket. Her wet thighs press together, flattening a hand against her mushy lips.

But she drags the blanket over and turns, her wetness hurts. Chants Ianthe's name until her lips numb and she feels sleep descend like a ghost on her empty vessel of a body. Ianthe. Ianthe. Ianthe. Ianthe.

She haunts her.

.

High noon and mother combs through Iphis' short hair with her short-fingered, water-worn hands. Iphis' head rests on mother's folded legs, her knobby knee. Iphis smells bread and starch in her dress, she spends all her day in the dingy kerosene kitchen and works, works, works. But she will still always be lesser than her father who holds his pride in his maleness only. Isis grips her boyish-robes. She will never be like this.

 _You are protected by Lady Isis, my sweet. Lady Isis, my love. All great Isis. Lady Isis will protect you. You don't worry._

Her mother will chant over and over in a spell of madness. Iphis does not mind. She instead likes to imagine how Lady Isis came in sweeping, shimmering blue robes. Her skin, a dark mahogany with glittered gold and crystal blue eyes. How she touches Iphis and disguises her as a boy and presses her finger to her lips. Winking.

So she rises, kisses the cheek of her still blabbering mother, and seals it with a brush of her gentle, girlish hands. Pulls on leather gloves and turns. The window of her mother's quarters is strange, far too big. But Father has not yet complained, she does all the chores at least, is a useful woman. One of the foolish brides to ever smile on marriage, so why not this?

High noon. And Iphis spots a patch of trimmed violets tied with a piece of yellow cloth on the golden sun garden. There it is and Iphis tries to ignore the pattering of her heart but her hand reaches out. It always does.

So she races out, despite her mother's shaky voice. Sandals clamber and she shoves the batch of flowers to her chest. The cloth smells of Ianthe. The love which burns her chest, the flowers provide no balm but the cloth she presses to her face does.

So when she unravels it too slow, she finds a message.

"I know."

Hope and maybe, deathly fear. The noon succumbs.

.

In class, the ink looks shaky on her wooden board as Ianthe's lips are grimly pressed together. She has not looked her way once. The teacher slaps the floor with a stick and Iphis drops her pen in a moment of searing panic.

"Why, son of Ligdus, you are jumpy today." he laughs his laugh, for boys do not need scolding.

Iphis looks her way once, and Ianthe's eyes are damp with tears. Her shaking does not stop throughout class and she prays to Eros, to Aphrodite, to Isis. To save her. To save her lie. To save her loving.

The teacher leaves, and the boys howl and the girls shuffle, eyes cast down. Ianthe does not leave so neither does Iphis.

And in a flurry of shawls, and yellow robes, Iphis is pinned against a wall. She does not resist as dark eyes, brimmed with tears, look at her as if for the first time. Ianthe's palm presses to her lower, and feels, and her eyes smack widen.

"A girl, you- you-"

Her face falls in the crook of Iphis' neck and sobs. Iphis reaches and brushes her hair with the tips of her fingers. The sudden surge of courage is unknown. Maybe Eros watches.

"I love you."

A sob and slick tears run down Iphis' shoulder and chest. "No, we- _no."_

"Do you not love me equally, daughter of Athene?"

Breath hitches and nails embed in her skin and she pushes away, but Iphis knows it is all but confirmation. The violets live another day in the water glass beneath her low bed.

.

And at the festival, Ianthe leans in first.

They are going to wed soon, as man and woman, mature of fifteen age. But both are painfully aware of the passion between them is wrong, but oh how right. A woman and a woman.

So Iphis just kisses her harder, tasting sweat and salt, pressing her down to the earth near the river that roars away from everyone. The festival lights shine like little stars in the distance and she knows how their parents will discuss marriage over cup of tsipouro, and her mother will quake in fear for her female child.

Maybe Isis watches as Ianthe smiles up at her, crying.

"I love you."

Iphis cries finally, their tears mingle as their breaths. They burn within the passion and heat of their bodies and that's all, that's all the world reduces to.

But the violets have long since shrivelled and died, because maybe miracles such as her come with a price.

.

The world does, rarely knows, but the grains of salt and sand and drops of aegean and mascara soot, violet gardens know. There's was a lore of endings that never fit, maybe Isis granted Iphis manhood, maybe asylum to the lovers. Maybe they starved like the voilets. But Iphis and Ianthe loved and lost and many of us love and lose.

So what do _you_ hide then?

.


End file.
